Battle of Manhattan
The Battle of Manhattan was a series of actions of the Accordance War. Overview As armies marched around the northeastern U.S. and Canada, some found it odd that New York City, one of the most Glamorous cities in the Northeast, wasn’t attacked. Looking at the battle maps, it seemed like the sidhe were actually avoiding the area. But the nobles’ strategy became clear: by attacking bases to the north and south, they were driving commoners toward the city. By surrounding NYC, they were blocking escape routes. The annihilation of the commoner army and the capture of those freeholds would be a crushing blow to the resistance, which was the intent. Gathering what soldiers he could, Lyros determined to make a stand in Manhattan. The Battle of Manhattan was a kind of turning point of the war. Everyone but the nitpicky historians tend to lump all the battles of the Manhattan Campaign under the name of the Battle of Manhattan, but actually, there were a number of engagements. At the beginning of the campaign, most of Long Island and the lands surrounding New York were more or less under sidhe control. The sidhe swept through borough after borough until only the island of Manhattan was in commoner hands. The largest segment of the battle commenced at dawn on the 30th of December, 1973, as sidhe units charged across the bridges and leapt out of ships in the harbor. They met little resistance until they reached Central Park. There, they met a troll army making ready behind hasty fortifications. As they had for most of the war, the sidhe took the initiative by a series of feints and commando attacks before sweeping over the barriers and smashing the army. The trolls and the mixed-kith companies called up to support them took grievous losses. Lyros and his forces renewed their lines the following day, and the battle shifted back and forth. The sluagh came into their own as intelligence gatherers and trap setters, insuring that the invaders could not truly relax anywhere on the island. The nobles gained ground but at a terrible cost. Each time the commoners retreated, the advancing sidhe touched off traps set by nockers and sluagh. With each apparent retreat, the regrouped units had less room to maneuver. By noon, the troll units had been cut off from other commoner companies and were in danger of being destroyed. Nearly surrounded in his headquarters in Greenwich, Lyros gave the order to scatter and conduct street-to-street battle. The surprised sidhe’s tactics were less effective in the alleyways, while the commoners, especially the sluagh, were at their best. Had things continued, the battle might have been fought to a draw. But we all know it didn’t continue. When word of Dafyll’s death in the bowels of the borough reached the sidhe, they had three different reactions. Some were shocked into inaction, leaving the battle to mourn their leader. Others went into berserk frenzy which, though, terrifying, lacked the skill and finesse which had backed us into a corner in the first place. Finally, a number of ranking individuals ignored their battle plans (and the commoners) and began hunting for the late warlord’s sword. The leaders who went on the wild goose chase often drew off their knights and retainers to aid in the search, taking more pressure off the commoner forces. The warlord’s death gave commoner morale a real boost, and the trolls milked it for all it was worth. Sidhe were attacked from all sides, and knightly companies were crushed between the 4th Troll and the Queens’ Own Commons. Units from the 2nd Brooklyn Infantry spearheaded the mop-up and were the ones who almost caught True Thomas and his young noble charges. By dawn of the following day, the sidhe had been kicked out of Manhattan. Of course, fighting continued in the city for the rest of the war, but Manhattan would remain staunchly in commoner hands. And Dafyll? No, I don’t know who killed him, and I won’t condone nor condemn the action. It happened, and because it did, the commoners won the battle and David Ardry discovered Caliburn. It really gets my blood going when, to this very day, nobles fume about the “dastardly criminal attack.” It was one sidhe, in the middle of a war. Compare that with the wholesale slaughter of dozens of commoners who came to the sidhe unarmed and in good faith? Nothing done by any of the commoners during the entire war can match the baseness of that vile act back on Beltaine, 1970. After the death of Dafyll, the progress of the Restorationists was much less certain. Manhattan had shown that the sidhe could be stopped and even beaten. The commoners got wise to some of the sidhe tricks, and invented a few of their own. They earned quickly, and that gave them the strength to take the fight to the enemy. Also, the sidhe had lost their point of unity, and had no one to replace him. The war bogged down as Dafyll’s lieutenants conducted local and regional campaigns with their own fragments of the great host. The commoner forces still lost some, but they managed to win a few, too. Some of the “subjected” territories rose up again. They weren’t much more successful than the first time, but they kept the nobles busy. * Battle of Manhattan: December 25th, 1973 - January 1st, 1974 (Death of Dafyll). * David Ardry Discovers Caliburn: January 1st, 1974. Battles * Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge * Battle of Central Park * Battle of Greenwich References # CTD. Fool's Luck: The Way of the Commoner, pp. 38-40. Category:Changeling: The Dreaming Events